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Surveillance
Tech

Chinese AR start-up develops smart glasses to help police catch suspects

  • China spent US$184 billion on domestic security in 2017, less than the US$150 billion it spent on external defence
  • Xloong was founded by former Huawei hardware engineer Shi Xiaogang

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Police officers display their artificial intelligence-powered smart glasses in Luoyang, a city in central China’s Henan province, on April 3, 2018. Photo: Reuters
Yingzhi Yangin Beijing

Using a pair of glasses to detect and locate criminals might sound like a futuristic scene from a Hollywood film, but it has already become a reality in China.

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Beijing-based augmented reality (AR) company Xloong created such a set of smart glasses for Chinese police in 2017, according to a company brochure. When wearing the AR glasses, police can access real-time facial, identification card and vehicle plate information that are linked with a national database. The company said the AR glasses “free the hands” of police and “improve efficiency in discovering criminal suspects”.

The glasses are already being used by law-enforcement authorities at airports and highway inspection stations, the company said in the handout. Six local public security bureaus are also using the Xloong headsets, including those in Beijing, Tianjin and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
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Xloong, meaning “fierce dragon” in Chinese, was founded in Beijing by former Huawei Technologies hardware engineer Shi Xiaogang. The start-up currently employs more than 100 people and counts internet of things firm Hefei BOE Technology, Gobi Ventures, Beijing Institute of Technology, and some provincial governments as financial backers, having raised hundreds of millions of yuan from them.

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